Path 2

Marc Dreier Pleads Guilty, Gets House Arrest

May 12, 2009

Our favorite scamster, Marc Dreier — the Man of a Thousand Faces who impersonated his way to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of phony note sales, sometimes with supporting players — has pleaded guilty. In fact, he told the court, “I understand that everything I was doing was illegal.” In return, he gets early-Madoff-style house arrest — Madoff, of course, lost that privilege when he pleaded guilty, perhaps owing to his greater criminal celebrity, or because Dreier is cooperating with court-appointed trustees to sift the wreckage of his fraud and perhaps give his victims some restitution. The charges are money laundering, conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud, and are expected to earn him a life sentence. Muckety supplies a chart of Dreier’s connections which, while it doesn’t incriminate anybody, is amusing (Dreier’s firm, which went bust when he was found out, represented Jay Leno, and Dreier himself contributed to Bill Richardson’s Presidential campaign).